Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has ordered an emergency disbursement of budgets to help Ukraine repair energy infrastructure damaged by Russian missile and drone attacks.
According to the decree issued on August 11, 2 million USD will be transferred from President Ilham Aliyev's reserve account to the Azerbaijani Ministry of Energy to purchase and hand over to Ukraine power equipment produced by Azerbaijan.
The announcement came after a Russian drone attacked a gas pipeline monitoring facility in Ukraine last week. The facility that was attacked was originally used to transport Azerbaijani gas. The Russian airstrike also hit an oil storage facility operated by the state-owned Azerbaijan oil company Socar in southern Ukraine.
The emergency disbursement order was issued a day after Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held phone talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Detailed information about the phone call released on August 10 said that the two leaders "accused Russian airstrikes on oil depots owned by Socar as well as other facilities owned by Azerbaijan in Ukraine, as well as Azerbaijan's gas compressment plant for transport to Ukraine".
Mr. Ilham Aliyev and Mr. Volodymyr Zelensky both affirmed that cooperation in the energy sector between Azerbaijan and Ukraine will not be stopped after the Russian airstrike.
On August 6, Russia's Shahed drone attacked an important gas pumping and measurement facility of the Transbalkan gas pipeline on the border between Ukraine and Romania, where Kiev is testing the import of a batch of gas originating from Azerbaijan.
The attack led to a major fire at a gas measuring facility. The fire was so large that it could be seen from Romania. Ukraine did not publicly assess the damage after the attack.
Data from the European Gas Transmission Operators Association Entsog shows that the amount of gas Ukraine imports through the facility has remained almost unchanged, at around 425,000 m3/day since early August.
Two days after the attack on the gas measuring station, a Russian drone attacked an oil storage facility operated by Socar in Ukraine's Odessa region, destroying a fuel pipeline and injuring four Socar staff, according to Baku and Kiev.
Russian drones have previously targeted fuel stations operated by Socar in Ukraine. Vitaly Bunechko, head of the Zhytomyr military agency, said in early August that a Socar facility in Zhytomyr had been attacked, killing two and injuring 15.
Azerbaijan is a major gas supplier to Europe after Russia reduced and stopped direct gas supplies to Europe via pipeline in 2022 in response to international sanctions targeting Russia as the conflict in Ukraine broke out.
